August 28, 2013
30% BLACK BASE VOTE GIVE RAOUL PATH TO WIN GOVERNOR PRIMARY

ANALYSIS & OPINION BY RUSS STEWART

 Illinois ’ politics is, if nothing else, a redundancy entwined with predictability. The operative phrase is: Déjà vu all over. 2014 promises more of the same old, same old.

As black Chicago state senator Kwame Raoul ponders a bid for governor, incumbent Pat Quinn (D) is quaking, challenger Bill Daley is salivating, and the political mind boggles with analogies.

Will Raoul be Illinois ’ next superstar, another Barack Obama, able to meld blacks and white liberals into a winning coalition in 2014, as Obama did in 2004? Or will he be another Roland Burris, a hapless and dreary loser, who lost gubernatorial primaries in 1994, 1998, 2002, a mayor’s bid in 1995, and a senate primary in 1984? Of will he be Illinois ’ next spoiler, drawing enough votes away from Quinn to insure Daley’s nomination?

The state’s Democratic political landscape contains many fissures, with the major fault lines being race and geography. Blacks habitually vote for the black contender in statewide primaries, or vote for the white candidate who is most liberal or least associated with the old Chicago Daley Machine – the “Bridgeporters.”. Downstaters vote for anybody who resides outside Chicago , or least liberal Chicagoan. Secondary fault lines include ideology and gender.

The dynamics of a Quinn-Daley primary are markedly distinct from those of a Quinn-Daley-Raoul primary. The Democrats are divided into three segments: Pro-Quinn, anti-Quinn, and non-Quinn – each encompassing about a third of the electorate. In a two-way race, absent Raoul, the “non-Quinn” vote, largely blacks and Hispanics, would support the governor over Daley, and the “pro-Quinn” vote, mainly white liberals and gays would hold firm. But in a three-way race, the “non-Quinns” and even some “pro-Quinns” would gravitate to Raoul, 2014’s trendy flavor-of-the-month.

Here’s some historical background:

First, fewer Illinoisans are voting in Democratic primaries, or, for that matter, in any primaries. In 1984, during the Reagan-Mondale presidential race, turnout in the state’s primary was 1,565,446. Twenty years later, as Obama sought the U.S. Senate seat, turnout plunged to 1,242,996. In Cook County, turnout fell from 1,135,142 in 1984 to 764,163 in 2004 -- almost 400,000 fewer Democrats. White liberals and minorities now comprise the bulk of those who do vote.

Second, race matters. In the 1984 primary, Burris got 360,182 votes (23 percent) statewide, and 276,583 votes in Cook County . Almost 90 percent of his non-Downstate backing came from black-majority wards and townships. White liberals flocked to Paul Simon, a Downstate congressman; the Daley Organization candidate, Phil Rock, got 303,397 votes, to Simon’s 556,737. In 2004, Obama’s principal opponent was Dan Hynes, scion of 19th Ward Machine boss, Daley ally, and 1987 Harold Washington mayoral foe Tom Hynes. In an 8-candidate field, including Gery Chico, Blair Hull and Maria Pappas, Obama amassed 655,923 votes (52.7 percent) statewide, and 464,917 (64.4 percent) in Cook County. Obama got 200,000 more countywide (and, hence, statewide) votes than Burris in 1984, meaning a lot of whites supported him, while Hynes got as many votes (294,717) in 2004 as Rock received (303,397) in 1984.

In non-presidential year governor’s races, Democratic primary turnout has been 1,099,025 (1994), 950,307 (1998), 1,252,576 (2002), 944,381 (2006) and 951,726 (2010), for an average of 1,039,603. Burris ran in three primaries, getting 401,142 votes (36.5 percent) in 1994, 290,393 (30.5 percent) in 1998, and 363,591

(29.1 percent) in 2002. That averages 351,708 votes, or about 32 percent per cycle. That’s the basement Burris black vote, which Raoul will get just by being on the ballot. That, plus the breakout Barack vote of 200,000, is what he needs to win.

Third, geography doesn’t matter. Democrats dominate Illinois government, and Chicagoans dominate the Democrats. The only Downstater of any prominence is Lieutenant Governor Sheila Simon, and she’s bailing to run for comptroller. Her dad, Paul Simon, and his Senate colleague, Alan Dixon, gave Downstate considerable clout until Carol Moseley Braun beat Dixon in 1992.

Overall, the Downstate primary vote is barely 25 percent of the total turnout. In the last four contested governor’s races, it averaged just 260,000.

Likewise, the “collar counties” don’t matter. In those four contested primaries, turnout averaged 167,000, under 17 percent of the total turnout. 

That means Cook County averaged a 657,000 turnout per primary, or 65 percent, withChicago comprising just over 300,000 of those voters, and blacks, with heavy concentrations in the south and west suburbs, casting about 300,000 votes..

Fourth, the “Daley connection” is unhelpful, and can be poisonous in a two-man race. Rock, the white Illinois Senate president, backed by the Southwest Siders, including committeemen from the 11th, 13th, 19th and 23rd wards, failed to draw Donwstate, and got 19 percent in 1984, losing to Simon. Against Obama in 2004, Dan Hynes got an anemic 23.7 percent.

In the four governor’s races, the Daley Machine backed Dawn Clark Netsch (1994), John Schmidt (1998), Paul Vallas (2002) and Dan Hynes (2010). All except Netsch lost, and she took 487,364 votes because she had broad ideological and gender appeal to Lakefronters and suburbanites. Even so, she still got only 44.3 percent. In 1998, Schmidt, the mayor’s former chief-of-staff, was squeezed between Burris and conservative Downstate congressman Glenn Poshard, getting 236,309 votes (24.8 percent), while Poshard won with 37.6 percent.

In 2002, Vallas, Daley’s former school CEO, ran almost 80,000 votes ahead of Burris, but his 431,726 total fell just short of Rod Blagojevich’s 457,197 (36.5 percent), and Blago’s 25,469-vote victory margin came from Downstate. And in 2010, in a one-on-one between Quinn and Hynes, the governor triumphed by 8,372 votes, winning Cook County by 40,079, and carrying the 20 Chicago black wards by 88,227-62,968, a margin of 25,259 votes. Without question, the black vote was determinative, and was decisive for Quinn.

In four contested races, the “Daley candidate’s” vote averaged 402,000, or about 39 percent. That’s enough to win a three-way race, but not a two-person contest.

Why this black animus toward the Daleys, or, more accurately, the “Bridgeporters”? It all relates back to the Rock Island railroad tracks and the 1919 Chicago race riots.

In 1920, blacks were a minuscule portion of Chicago ’s population, numbering 109,525 in a city of 2.7 million, just four percent. Blacks were isolated in the so-called “Black Belt,” the South Side 2nd and 3rd wards – 22nd to 55th Streets, between Wentworth and Cottage Grove . By 1940, with “Freedom Trains” regularly arriving from the South, the city’s black population climbed to 272,751, and, by 1950, to 519,437. The “Black Belt” burst, Wentworth was breached as far west as the Rock Island tracks (which was the eastern boundary of Bridgeport and the 11th Ward), and huge numbers of blacks began migrating to Lawndale on the West Side .

Bridgeport , then as now, stretched from the Chicago River to 55th Street , between the tracks and Damen. Bridgeport was also the city’s “Cradle of Mayors,” with native sons Ed Kelly (1933-47), Martin Kennelly (1947-55), and Richard J. Daley (1955-76) occupying City Hall…and later Mike Bilandic (1977-79) and Richard M. Daley (1989-2011). In the early 1950s, the white politicians’ solution to the “black problem” was summarized as follows: “Build ‘em high, and dig it deep.”

With federal funding, the Chicago Housing Authority launched a massive tenement-razing and high-rise building effort, creating 40,000 units between 1950 and 1956 .In an area of two miles, from Pershing Road to 54th Street, between State Street and the Rock Island tracks, the so-called “slum castles in the air” materialized. The goal was to keep blacks out of Bridgeportand the adjacent white neighborhoods. Construction of the Dan Ryan Expressway in the 1950s, which cut north-south along the Rock Island , was another man-made barrier to ghetto expansion.

The era’s black leadership fully comprehended why Daley and his all-powerful political Machine kept blacks in the projects. It was easier to control their votes, it kept them penned, and it made school desegregation unnecessary.

To this day, Bridgeport still teems with white working-class ethnics – Irish, Poles, Lithuanians, Germans, Italians, Hispanics – and a growing professional class is buying condos along Halsted. But, to this day, there are virtually no blacks. Bridgeport is as much of a negative symbol to Chicago blacks as Selma , Alabama is to Southern blacks.

Any politician associated with Bridgeport , including the “lace curtain” Irish who moved southwestward through Back of the Yards and Marquette Park in the 14th Ward, on to Morgan Park and Beverly in the 19th Ward, is tarnished.

Blacks will vote for a white (like Quinn) over a “Bridgeporter,” and, when confronted with a choice between Daley and an inconsequential black in the 2003 and 2007 mayoral races, they just won’t vote.

My prediction: The only way Quinn can win is go negative on Daley and unite the anti-Daley 60 percent. But pent-up anti-Quinn sentiment could boost Daley to a narrow win in a two-man race. In a Quinn-Daley-Raoul fight, Daley’s ceiling drops to 35-40, and Quinn’s liberal/minority base collapses. Raoul becomes the “fresh” face, and Daley the “Bridgeporter.” Expect a Raoul upset.